Abstract
Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) are musical instruments typically composed of a control surface where user interaction is measured by sensors whose values are mapped to sound synthesis algorithms. These instruments have gained interest among skilled musicians and performers in the last decades leading to artistic practices including musical performance, interactive installations and dance. The creation of DMIs typically involves several areas, among them: arts, design and engineering. The balance between these areas is an essential task in DMI design so that the resulting instruments are aesthetically appealing, robust, and allow responsive, accurate and repeatable sensing. In this paper, we review the use of sensors in the DMI community as manifested in the proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2009–2013). Focusing on the sensor technologies and signal conditioning techniques used by the NIME community. Although it has been claimed that specifications for artistic tools are harder than those for military applications, this study raises a paradox showing that in most of the cases, DMIs are based on a few basic sensors types and unsophisticated engineering solutions, not taking advantage of more advanced sensing, instrumentation and signal processing techniques that could dramatically improve their response. We aim to raise awareness of limitations of any engineering solution and to assert the benefits of advanced electronics instrumentation design in DMIs. For this, we propose the use of specialized sensors such as strain gages, advanced conditioning circuits and signal processing tools such as sensor fusion. We believe that careful electronic instrumentation design may lead to more responsive instruments.
Highlights
The use of sensors and associated signal conditioning to measure physical quantities involves the fields of metrology and electronic instrumentation
We focus our attention on the engineering design of Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs), the choice of electronic instrumentation strategies
We present an overview of the electronic instrumentation strategies used in 266 papers by the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community from 2009 to 2013
Summary
The use of sensors and associated signal conditioning to measure physical quantities involves the fields of metrology and electronic instrumentation. Metrology is the science of measurement and its application. The VIM, along with the GUM (Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement), define uncertainty and errors involved in measurements. Electronic instrumentation is the measurement chain of an electronic measuring system, resulting in an analog or digital electrical output quantity. An electronic instrumentation typically includes all signal conditioning techniques on the path of a sensor signal towards an output electrical value. A sensor is considered the “element of a measuring system that is directly affected by a phenomenon carrying a quantity to be measured” [1]. Instrumentation of any sensor signal implies errors and uncertainties. In order to answer this question, he developed the “Unified
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